Cornflakes Goes Classical ... or Quantum?!

[Cornflakes]

Time for some more in-depth planning on how to safely expand into Yuri's territory. Since I'm down to just 1 city elimination I can't take any unnecessary risks. I need to manage my expansion such that I can absorb a 20 Camel Archer stack marching from Commodore's frontline city to my expansion (including minimizing fork opportunities).

Since I have Apostolic Palace and Spiritual + Philosophical traits for cheap temples and monasteries, plus UoS unlocked and ready to build when opportunity arises (and future Spiral Minaret availability), I have decided to expand more slowly. I'm going for more of an ICS dotmap. With cities planted at minimum 3-tile distance, I can:
- shuffle defenders easily
- have more whip queues
- cover vulnerable diagonals with culture from earlier cities
- benefit from monk economy

   

WHITE was founded 2 turns ago. Stepping-stone with 2 food resources and a forest to chop into Granary for a quick start. I'm not planning to spread religion here for a while. This is going to be a whipping outpost.

RED has settler in position to found next turn. I do want to spread religion here quickly because the 1st border pop will reduce the fork potential with WHITE and the 2nd border pop will cover the vulnerable 2SW diagonal of Yellow. RED will be another whipping outpost with the shared banana plantation. It has a 2nd ring forests that I'll chop to accelerate the Granary

YELLOW will cover the 2NW diagonal vulnerability of RED and has a mountain covering the 2NW diagonal. Therefore it can be settled quickly without straining the defensive military. I can shuffle WHITE defenders to RED and RED defenders to YELLOW. I also want religion quickly here to pick up 2nd ring corn and push the borders for defensive purposes.

BLUE is further away and is realistically out of range of support from a zone-defense knight stack in my core. On the plus side, it is located such that it covers the approach to all cities eastward, so I can concentrate defenders there. I've marked some tiles for pillaging roads. I'm also planning to pillage roads from the northern coast. I don't want Commodore to be able to ride out the free road movement in neutral territory.

*********************
On to this turn:

   

Commodore's 15 Camel Archers disappeared this turn I scouted the north everywhere within 6 tiles of Tin, moving the knight 1NE with the final fractional movement point on the off chance that Commodore had made an incredibly sneaky move to get the knights to that jungle one east of the "CA?" sign (road the tile, then delete the workers and pillage the road after moving the CA through).

So the Camel Archers didn't run north. Other options are:
- slightly south into the fog 3-2-2 of Tin outside my city vision, but still within range of Frequency.
- far south, trying to make a run forking Aether and Maxwell (at least 2 more turns to reach me).

Between the Phalanxes that I'm building everywhere, and the catapults and Knights that I have in zone defense I'm confident that I can hold, but only because I am not letting up on military production:

   

   

City advisor is before the turn roll. Military advisor is after the turn roll. Greece for the win! 2.5 Phalanxes per Camel Archer is just the prescription that I need to stomp out any blitz attempts.

[Cornflakes]

Commodore's stack has not appeared at the Aether/Maxwell fork point, and a Sentry HA did not find the stack of 15 Camel Archers on any of the fogged tiles in 1-turn range of Frequency. I'm slightly concerned about Commodore potentially sending that stack all the way east through the ice. It is just barely conceivable that he is now trying to sneak 15 camel archers through the ice, although that would be a desperate Hail Mary indeed and hand me considerable advantage if I could fend it off successfully. I'm sending a fog buster south of It's A Wave to give an extra turn's warning (3 turns total warning) just in case.

Operation Spiky Borders is proceeding with all speed. I'm continuing to build Phalanxes everywhere (3-4 per turn minimum without whipping) and may even whip a couple more in the east just to be safe. I now have 3 knights pillaging key roads to slow down an attack via Scooter's land. I'd say in 5 more turns all my borders will be secure from a backdoor attempt and I'll be able to settle YELLOW. A further 5 turns and I'll be confident enough to push forward to BLUE. Commodore's power graph is flat and I'm not sure what evil plot he is cooking up. The best I can conceive is GPP for a 2-man GA, swapping back to Police State and whipping hard or Representation to make a run for the next military tech. But at the rate that I'm cranking out Phalanxes so fast that I don't see immediate military working, and by the time he could get to the next generation of military I'll be able to really crank production out Yuri's land and overwhelm with numbers.

Gunpowder is the only thing that Commodore can reach in a reasonable timeframe but I don't see him amassing sufficient numbers to break down the front door.

[Cornflakes]

Here's a question for the lurkers: Why does this grassland ivory camp have 3 food? Riverside grassland Ivory with a camp should be 2/2/2. It's not a floodplains on the grassland because that would be 5 food. The tooltip specifically says grassland.

   

[williams482]

I don't remember this happening specifically, but aren't there events that can increase tile yield by 1f? That seems a likely explanation.

[xist10]

Camp has an Event which should have happened there.
If I recall it correct, the option are 1 for 10 turns, I think about 8f or +1f on the tile.

[Cornflakes]

I don't remember this happening specifically, but aren't there events that can increase tile yield by 1f? That seems a likely explanation.

Camp has an Event which should have happened there.
If I recall it correct, the option are 1 for 10 turns, I think about 8f or +1f on the tile.

Oh yes, I forgot that events were on. I think it's been about 100 turns since I received an event. I got free Cover promotion on all melee units early on (quite nice actually, neutralizes Crossbows as a defender vs. Maces, and makes barb archers/LB easy) but that might be the only event I've ever received. I do remember seeing a few German events popping up in the log though.

Good to see that the phalanxes are still contributing a bit!

I did not build nearly as many Phalanxes as I expected since I had to pick up Engineering earlier than expected for the road movement. I actually forgot that Engineering would obsolete Phalanxes and I have contemplated disconnecting my Iron if I wasn’t using it for Knights.

   

Operation Spiky Borders is nearing completion. I'm at the point now that I'm just about ready to reconnect my iron. Just a couple more turns to finish out the last Phalanxes and build some sentry HA in my barracks cities, which I'll use to fogbust the southern ice (for barb busting, but mainly to spot any attempts by Commodore to backdoor me).

[Jabah]

I thought that UU were not supposed to be obsolete ever (or was it in another mod) ?

[yuris125]

Can confirm the extra food on that ivory was an event

[Cornflakes]

Here is my play for the win:

   


My aggressive Phalanx push over the last 10 turns has been aimed at defending this push north. I now have a sentry net in the southern ice to alert me of any attempts to sneak another mounted stack deep. Therefore I have shifted those Phalanxes north. Currently I am only vulnerable to a fork from one tile, which I marked with the YELLOW box. I've stationed 4 catapults and a dozen Phalanx, with 6 knights and a few pikes. This will be enough to handle the current Camel Archer stack the Commodore has.

My plan is to stuff most defenders into Groupthink to thwart a direct attack on the diagonal. Then attack out and wipe his stack if he tries to fork or go deep. Given my long-term growth advantage, I'm more afraid of a direct assault to try and break down the front door at Frequency. In my opinion the most dangerous play the Commodore could make right now is to get a bunch of units pre-built, and then whip-whip-whip everything to the ground and just overwhelm with siege and numbers.

Meanwhile I've shifted BLUE dot to a more conservative location. It only picks up one food but it immediately covers the weak flatland approach to the eastern cities, while being in 1-turn range of reinforcing with whipped defenders from Groupthink. In fact, since all 4 expansion cities are within 3-tiles of each other, I can rotate whipped defenders easily from city-to-city as needed. ETA on BLUE is at least 5 turns since I haven't started a settler yet. I'm tentatively planning to whip out of New Wavelength since it can grow blazing fast on pig + banana. Probably by 4 -> 2 Phalanx whip, dump overflow into Settler, then 4 -> 2 whip the settler. This way I can keep pumping military in the core. BLUE will really secure the expansion and solidify my defenses rather than straining them further.

   

I have now surpassed Commodore in food thanks to my expansion. Apostolic Palace is providing the advantage in MFG. Soldier count is favorable, but tentative considering I have to keep my eyes on the back door while Commodore can concentrate everything on a front door assault. Commodore and I have been sparring in the road spam that was Scooter's and Yuri's border region. We've each lost about an equal amount of material, but the isolated combats suggest that Commodore is not gearing up for an imminent front door stack attack. I've also maintained enough vision to know that he isn't yet sending a mounted stack at my back door.

Despite using a Great Prophet to build his shrine a couple turns ago, his income is <30gpt. 8000 beakers for Cannon, Cuirassier, or Rifles is still a tall task. The immediate threat of breaking down the front door with catapults is still the more dangerous threat to me. If I can avoid strike and avoid a city raze for 30 turns, I think I win.

   

I decided to make another play for the long game by finishing UoS. I had invested 85 hammers on the eve of Yuri's DoW. Those hammers had just started to decay (that was 50 turns ago ). This is costing about 300 hammers worth of military which is another reason I'm more worried about brute force through the front door at the moment. Commodore has to know that I'm letting up the gas militarily since I swapped to OR. Hopefully he thought it was more for whipping the new cities, but my flattening power graphs will tell the true story.

My research capacity is nonexistent and my income is negative due to expansion into Yuri's territory. I will need to whip courthouses at some point when I can let off the military gas for a moment. That would require either wealth building, or some other source of beakers to reach CoL. I figured I might as well put the hammers into finishing UoS instead of Wealth. Spiritual is nice here because I swapped to Organized Religion for the exact duration that I need to build UoS. Meanwhile I'm also taking advantage of OR to whip the granaries in the expansion cities and finish barracks in 3 core cities, while putting a turn into various units everywhere to emergency whip if required (catapults, Phalanxes, and Maces).

After this I'll be pushing military as aggressively as I can without going into strike.

******************
After pausing the report to roll another turn: TARGET ACQUIRED

   

Commodore finally settled a city. I initially assumed that it would be in the secure backlines of the northwest, but spotted a Hindu missionary in Greig on the eastern side of his empire. Having now spotted the city center, I will gain EP vision starting next turn. This flatland city is out of range to ship mounted units in from Tin. I can now begin planning a two-pronged attack, posturing strength at Frequency as if gathering for a push on Tin, while in reality looking to back-door Commodore through the ice. Time to start building a long ice road!

[Cornflakes]

Commodore decided to try another backdoor attempt with a very long journey through Antarctica. This stack of Camel Archers disappeared from Tin a very long time ago. It had to have been around a dozen turn in transit, managing to evade my attempts at screening for it. My scouting chariot never stumbled upon them, probably because they have a Sentry while I didn't (got the remaining 2XP from a barb warrior only last turn).

   

I had to think for a bit about how best to approach this. I'm 100% covered, no question about that. My goal then was to try and present a soft-enough-to-entice target so as not to scare Commodore off and send this stack back to rejoin the front-door group. My knight stack in the north was held within 2-turns movement of the critical FORK hill tile for a contingency like this.

   

I debated stacking a few Phalanx on that fork hill to drive Commodore 1S of It's A Wave, but was concerned that this show of force would spook him. I therefore decided to hide as many of my Phalanxes as possible out of range of his Sentry, and then 2-whipped the two catapults in Gravity and It's A Wave (both have enough overflow to 1-turn a Phalanx). I'm back in Theocracy now which means that both of those catapults will have Barrage 2 and will nicely soften an 11-unit stack without siege to absorb my collateral.

   

If Commodore goes to the fork hill his stack is dead. My knights are all more promoted than his, and after 2 catapults I should have nicely positive odds on all battles including the Phalanx. If he goes 1S of It's A Wave instead, I won't be able to hit with 2 catapults, but I should still be able to get a good exchange. And If I dry whip a worker at It's A Wave next turn I'll be able to road and chase down any survivors.

The important point is that these 11 Camel Archers are NOT going to be joining an attempt to break through at Frequency in the next dozen turns if they get spooked, and if they advance they are dead. And furthermore these 11 Came Archers are unable to pressure my settlement in the north. We are proceeding full steam ahead with BLUE dot! Then I'll probably backfill the east coast and fix my deficit with pre-grown villages and hamlets before pushing forward into Scooter's area.

Commodore has turned on the tech slider for Banking (4 turns, thanks to pillage gold). This will unlock the Representation + Mercantilism combo for a juicy 60 passive beakers per turn. Which really reinforces my need to incorporate the open land ASAP.